Died on August 12

30

Cleopatra
the last active pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, only shortly survived by her son, Caesarion as pharaoh.

792

Jænberht
a medieval monk, and later the abbot, of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury who was named Archbishop of Canterbury in 765.
As archbishop, he had a difficult relationship with King Offa of Mercia, who at one point confiscated lands from the archbishopric. By 787, some of the bishoprics under Canterbury's supervision were transferred to the control of the newly created Archbishopric of Lichfield, although it is not clear if Jænberht ever recognised its legitimacy. Besides the issue with Lichfield, Jænberht also presided over church councils in England. He died in 792 and was considered a saint after his death

875

Louis II of Italy
the King of Italy and Roman Emperor from 844, co-ruling with his father Lothair I until 855, after which he ruled alone.
Louis's usual title was imperator augustus , but he used imperator Romanorum after his conquest of Bari in 871, which led to poor relations with Byzantium. He was called imperator Italiae in West Francia while the Byzantines called him Basileus Phrangias. The chronicler Andreas Bergomatis, who is the main source for Louis's activities in southern Italy, notes that "after his death a great tribulation came to Italy."

1156

Blanche of Navarre Queen of Castile
Queen of Castile, the daughter of King García Ramírez of Navarre and his first wife Margaret of L'Aigle.

1183

Margaret of Navarre
the queen consort of the Kingdom of Sicily during the reign of William I and the regent during the minority of her son, William II.

1204

Berthold Duke of Merania
the Count of Andechs and first Duke of Merania , that is, the seacoast of Dalmatia and Istria.
In 1188 he was appointed as margrave of Istria and from 1180 to 1182 he was duke of Croatia and Dalmatia

1295

Charles Martel of Anjou
the eldest son of king Charles II of Naples and Maria of Hungary, the daughter of King Stephen V of Hungary.

1308

Edmund de Stafford 1st Baron Stafford
the son of Nicholas de Stafford, who was summoned to parliament by writ on 6 February 1299 by King Edward I.

1319

Rudolf I Duke of Bavaria
Duke of Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine from 1294 until 1317.

1335

Prince Moriyoshi
a son of Emperor Go-Daigo and Minamoto no Chikako executed by Ashikaga Tadayoshi in 1335.

1399

Andrei of Polotsk
the eldest son of Algirdas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, and his first wife Maria of Vitebsk.
He was Duke of Pskov and Polotsk. As the eldest son of the Grand Duke, Andrei claimed his right to the throne after his father's death in 1377. Algirdas left Jogaila, his eldest son with his second wife Uliana of Tver, as the rightful heir. Andrei's rivalry with Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania and later King of Poland, eventually led to his demise

1399

Spytek of Melsztyn (died 1399)
a Polish nobleman.

1424

Yongle Emperor
the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty in China, reigning from 1402 to 1424.

1464

John Capgrave
an English historian, hagiographer and scholastic theologian.

1469

Richard Woodville 1st Earl Rivers
an English nobleman, best remembered as the father of Queen consort Elizabeth Woodville and the maternal grandfather of Edward V and the maternal great-grandfather of Henry VIII.

1484

Pope Sixtus IV
Pope from 9 August 1471 to his death in 1484.
His accomplishments as pope included building the Sistine Chapel; the group of artists that he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance into Rome with the first masterpieces of the city's new artistic age. He also established the Vatican Archives. Sixtus furthered the agenda of the Spanish Inquisition and annulled the decrees of the Council of Constance. He was famed for his nepotism and was personally involved in the infamous Pazzi Conspiracy

1551

Paul Speratus
a Catholic priest who became a Protestant preacher and song-writer.
In 1523, he helped Martin Luther to create the First Lutheran hymnal, published in 1524 and called Achtliederbuch

1577

Thomas Smith (diplomat)
an English scholar and diplomat.

1588

Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder
an Italian composer.
While mostly famous as the solitary Italian madrigalist working in England, and the one mainly responsible for the growth of the madrigal there, he also composed much sacred music. He also may have been a spy for Elizabeth I while he was in Italy

1602

Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak
the vizier of the great Mughal emperor Akbar, and author of the Akbarnama, the official history of Akbar's reign in three volumes, and a Persian translation of the Bible.
He was also one of the Nine Jewels of Akbar's royal court and the brother of Faizi, the poet laureate of emperor Akbar

1604

John I Count Palatine of Zweibrücken
Count Palatine and Duke of Zweibrücken during 1569-1604.

1612

Giovanni Gabrieli
an Italian composer and organist.
He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms

1633

Jacopo Peri
often called the inventor of opera.
He wrote the first work to be called an opera today, Dafne , and also the first opera to have survived to the present day, Euridice

1638

Johannes Althusius
a German jurist and Calvinist political philosopher.

1647

Matthew Hopkins
an English witch-hunter whose career flourished during the time of the English Civil War.
He claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was never bestowed by Parliament. His witch-hunts mainly took place in the eastern counties of Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, and occasionally in Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and Huntingdonshire

1654

Cornelius Haga
the first ambassador of the Dutch Republic to the Ottoman Empire.

1667

Cornelius van Poelenburgh
a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.

1674

Philippe de Champaigne
a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.
He was a founding member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture

1676

Metacomet
a war chief or sachem of the Wampanoag Indians and their leader in King Philip's War, a widespread uprising against English colonists in New England.

1679

Marie de Rohan
a French aristocrat, famed for being the center of many of the intrigues of the first half of the 17th century in France.
In various sources, she is often known simply as Madame de Chevreuse

1689

Pope Innocent XI
Pope from 21 September 1676 to his death in 1689.
He is known as the "Saviour of Hungary"

1722

Giovanni II Cornaro
a Venetian nobleman and statesman; he served as the 111th Doge of Venice from 22 May 1709 until his death.

1725

Pierre de Montesquiou d'Artagnan
a French soldier and Marshal of France.

1750

Rachel Ruysch
a Dutch still life painter who specialized in flowers.
She achieved international fame in her lifetime, and was the best documented woman painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Art historians assess Ruysch to be one of the most talented still life artists among both men and women. By her death at age 86 she had produced more than 250 paintings

1763

Olof von Dalin
a Swedish nobleman, poet, historian and courtier.
He was an influential literary figure of the Swedish Enlightenment

1778

Peregrine Bertie 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven
the son of Peregrine Bertie, 2nd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven.

1782

Stanisław Lubomirski (1722–1782)
a Polish nobleman.
He was awarded Knight of the Order of the White Eagle on August 3, 1757 in Warsaw

1794

Michał Jerzy Poniatowski
a Polish nobleman, abbot of Tyniec and Czerwińsk, Bishop of Płock and Coadjutor Bishop of Kraków from 1773, and Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland from 1784.
He was made a knight of the Order of the White Eagle on November 25, 1764. Nine days later, he was made a prince by his brother, the last king of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski

1799

Feliks Oraczewski
a Polish writer, educational and political activist.

1803

Ignazio Busca
an Italian cardinal and Secretary of State of the Holy See.
He was the last son of Lodovico Busca, marquess of Lomagna and Bianca Arconati Visconti. he took a degree in utroque iure in 1759 at the Università La Sapienza of Rome. Relator of the Sacred Consulta and referendary of the tribunal of the Apostolic Signature, he was ordained priest on August 20, 1775. Elected titular archbishop of Emesa, he was consecrated on September 17, 1775 in Frascati, by Henry Benedict Stuart. He was apostolic nuncio in Flanders and apostolic vicar for Netherlands from 1776 to 1785 and later was governor of Rome from 1785 until 1789. Created cardinal in the consistory of March 30, 1789, he received the Galero and the title of Santa Maria della Pace on August 3, 1789. He was appointed Secretary of State by Pope Pius VI in 1796. He participated in the conclave of 1800

1809

Mikhail Kamensky
a Russian Field Marshal prominent in the Catherinian wars and the Napoleonic campaigns.

1810

Étienne Louis Geoffroy
a French entomologist and pharmacist.
He was born in Paris and died in Soissons. He followed the binomial nomenclature of Carl von Linné and devoted himself mainly to beetles

1811

Sir John Acton 6th Baronet
commander of the naval forces of Grand Duchy of Tuscany and prime minister of Naples under Ferdinand IV.

1812

Jean-Joseph Rodolphe
an Alsatian horn player, violinist and composer.

1813

Samuel Osgood
an American merchant and statesman born in North Andover, Massachusetts, parent town of the Andovers.
His family home still stands at 440 Osgood Street in North Andover and his home in New York City, the Samuel Osgood House, served as the country's first Presidential mansion. He served in the Massachusetts and New York State legislatures, represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress and was the first Postmaster General of the United States, serving during George Washington's first term

1816

Charles Hubert Millevoye
a French poet several times honored by the Académie française.
He was a transitional figure between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries as revealed in his Romantic poems. His poem beginning "Dans les bois l'amoureux Myrtil" is also well known as set to music in Vieille Chanson by Georges Bizet, as well as Le Mancenillier, as referred to in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine and Louis Moreau Gottschalk's serenade for piano Le Mancenillier, 11

1816

Mary Katherine Goddard
an early American publisher and the first American postmistress.
She was the first to print the Declaration of Independence with the names of the signatories

1822

Robert Stewart Viscount Castlereagh
an Anglo-Irish British statesman.
As British Foreign Secretary, from 1812 he was central to the management of the coalition that defeated Napoleon and was the principal British diplomat at the Congress of Vienna. Castlereagh was also leader of the British House of Commons in the Liverpool government from 1812 until his suicide in August 1822. Early in his career, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, he was involved in putting down the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and was instrumental in securing the passage of the Irish Act of Union of 1800

1827

William Blake
an English painter, poet and printmaker.
Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Although he lived in London his entire life , he produced a diverse and symbolically rich oeuvre, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself"

1848

George Stephenson
an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830.
Renowned as the "Father of Railways", the Victorians considered him a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement, with self-help advocate Samuel Smiles particularly praising his achievements. His rail gauge of 4 feet 8 1⁄2 inches , sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", is the standard gauge by name and by convention for most of the world's railways